What is a stock screener and how to use one, step by step
By the MeridIAn Screener team · Published on 13 October 2026 · 5 min read
Tens of thousands of companies are listed around the world. Nobody can study them all, so almost every investor starts the same way: with a filter that cuts the list down to a few worth a closer look. That filter is a screener.
What a screener is
A stock screener is a tool that goes through a database of listed companies and returns only the ones that meet the conditions you set.
Example: “US companies with a P/E below 15 that pay at least a 3% dividend.” Out of thousands of companies, the screener leaves you with a few dozen.
It is the first step, not the last: it tells you where to look, not what to buy.
Types of screeners
| Type | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Filter-based | You choose the conditions (P/E, dividend, debt, country…) and it returns the companies that meet them. | “P/E below 15 and dividend above 3%” |
| Score-based | It gives each company a score and ranks them from best to worst. | See the 20 best-scored companies in a sector first |
| Technical | It filters on price behavior: trends, highs, volume. | “Stocks at 52-week highs” |
The first two are usually fundamental: they look at the business (earnings, debt, cash). The technical one looks at the chart. They serve different purposes: fundamentals help you choose which company; technicals, when to get in or out.
MeridIAn Screener is score-based and fundamental: it gives each of its 2,122 companies a score from 0 to 10 based on its financial data and recent news, and ranks them from best to worst, also within each sector.
An example with real data
Let’s try a classic filter, “cheap, lightly indebted companies that pay a dividend”, on the 2,122 companies in MeridIAn Screener with data from October 13, 2026:
| Condition | What it means |
|---|---|
| P/E between 5 and 15 | You pay 5 to 15 times what the company earns in a year, and it is not losing money. |
| Net debt / EBITDA below 2 | It could repay all its debt with less than two years of operating profit. |
| Dividend yield of 3% or more | It pays $3 or more a year for every $100 invested. |
101 companies meet all three (5% of the total). These are the 5 with the best score:
| Company | Country | P/E | Debt/EBITDA | Dividend | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equinor | Norway | 11.5 | 0.2 | 3.5% | 8.3 |
| Vår Energi | Norway | 10.1 | 0.4 | 10.3% | 8.3 |
| Centrica | United Kingdom | 9.8 | -0.1 | 4.1% | 8.0 |
| DOF Group | Norway | 7.0 | 1.7 | 10.5% | 8.0 |
| TORM | United Kingdom | 6.9 | 0.8 | 10.7% | 8.0 |
If you raise the minimum dividend to 5%, 41 are left. If you also require a P/E below 8, 10 are left. Every condition you add narrows the list, and past a certain point you are left with companies that meet the numbers by chance or for a bad reason.
Notice two things. The filter doesn’t tell you why those companies are cheap (sometimes there is a good reason). And it leaves out excellent companies that don’t pay a dividend. That’s why the filter is where the work starts, not where it ends.
This is an example of how a filter works, not a recommendation to buy.
How to use a screener in 5 steps
- Decide what you are looking for before you filter. Income (dividends), growth or quality at a fair price are different goals, and each needs different filters.
- Start with a few broad filters. With ten conditions you will get no results, or companies that meet them by chance. Three or four well-chosen ones are enough.
- Look at why each company stands out. On MeridIAn the score is split into categories (financial health, quality / moat, valuation, growth, dividend, momentum and risk & context). A company can score 8 because it is very cheap or because it is very profitable, and that is not the same. The guide to reading a company page explains it with an example.
- Read the main risk. Every company page sums up in one sentence what could go wrong. For example, for the No. 1 in the ranking on October 13, 2026, Equinor: “The main risk is the fall in crude oil prices, which could compress upstream margins, although diversification and low leverage mitigate the impact.”
- Check and decide for yourself. Go through its financials and latest news, compare it with peers and think about how much of your money you would put in. A screener doesn’t know your situation or your time horizon.
5 common mistakes
- Buying the first one on the list without reading its page. The score summarizes; the report explains.
- Confusing cheap with good. A shipping company at the best point of the cycle can have a P/E of 3. If next year its earnings halve, at the same share price its P/E becomes 6. It looked like a bargain and it was only at the peak.
- Filtering only for a high dividend. A 10% yield sometimes means the share price has collapsed because the market expects a dividend cut.
- Forgetting costs. US stocks trade commission-free at most brokers, but foreign shares can carry currency and other fees. We explain them in investing in foreign stocks.
- Taking the snapshot for the movie. Data changes: on MeridIAn it is recalculated every Monday and Thursday, and a company can drop after a bad quarter or bad news.
A free stock screener
MeridIAn Screener is free. Without signing up you can see the top 10 of the ranking, every company page, the news and the broker comparison. If you sign up, for free with your Google account, you see the full ranking and every company in each sector.
- A screener narrows thousands of companies down to a few worth studying.
- Use few filters, understand why each company stands out and always read its main risk.
- The decision is yours: the screener doesn’t know how much risk you can take.
Keep reading
General information for educational purposes. Not financial or tax advice, nor a recommendation to buy or sell securities. Investing in shares involves the risk of loss. · Contact: info@meridianscreener.com